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WILFORD WOODRUFF
Total Articles:
6
Fourth President of the Mormon Church from 1889-1898. A firm believer and practicer of polygamy, today the LDS Corporation makes no mention of his plural wives.
Wilford wrote in his journal on March 21, 1857; "I bought an Indian boy of Brother Willis this morning abo[u]t 6 years old. His Indian name was Saroquetes. We call him Nephi. He appears like a smart active good boy. I paid $40 for him."
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Facts & Quotes From The Life Of Wilford Woodruff - To Use In Sunday School During 2006
Wednesday, Jan 4, 2006, at 08:10 AM
Original Author(s): Non Sequitur
Topic: WILFORD WOODRUFF -Link To MC Article- | ↑ | I thought it would be fun to make a list of interesting facts about the life of Wilford Woodruff or quotes from WW to use during Sunday School lessons in 2006.
Here are a few to start (I took much of this from other RFM posts, so please don't be offended if I don't reference your post. Just know it was appreciated!):
1) When Wilford Woodruff entered the valley with Brigham Young on July 24, 1847 he wrote in his journal:
"We gazed with wonder and admiration upon the vast rich fertile valley which lay for about 25 miles in length and 16 miles in width Clothed with the Heaviest garb of green vegitation in the midst of which lay a large lake of Salt water . . . After gazing awhile upon the seenery we travled across the table land into the valley 4 miles to the encampment of our Brethren who had arived 2 days before. [-] they had pitched there encampment upon the bank of two small streams of pure water and had commenced plowing. Had broke about 5 acres of ground and commenced planting Potatoes."
However thirty years later on September 16, 1877, when speaking in the Salt Lake Tabernacle Woodruff said, "But when we came to this country, what did we find here? A barren desert as barren as the Desert of Sahara; and the only signs of life were a few black crickets, some cayote wolves, and a few poor wandering Indians." (Journal of Discourses, Vol 19, p. 224)
Within 30 years the lie had caught on enough that it could be publicly proclaimed by those who knew better to those who also knew better. As someone once said, "when evilspeaking of the Lord's Anointed is considered worse than lying the truth suffers."
2) “’The Gospel of modern Christendom shuts up the Lord, and stops all communication with Him. I want nothing to do with such a Gospel, I would rather prefer the Gospel of the dark ages, so called.’
- Prophet Wilford Woodruff, Journal of Discourses, vol. 2, p.196 . . . [emphasis added] . . .
3) "The Lord Almighty never created a world like this and peopled it for six thousand years, as He has done, without having some motive in view."
- Prophet Wilford Woodruff, Journal of Discourses, vol. 25, p.9 January 6, 1884. The Discourses of Wilford Woodruff, p. 8)
4) "If we are going to do away with polygamy, it would only be one feather in the bird, one ordinance in the Church and Kingdom. Do away with that, then we must do away with the prophets and apostles, with revelation and the gifts and graces of the Gospel, and finally give up our religion altogether."
- Prophet Wilford Woodruff, Journal of Discourses, vol. 13, p.166 1869
5) Not by Wilford Woodruff, but it will add to the lesson where the Manifesto is mentioned:
"The only men who become Gods, even the Sons of God, are those who enter into polygamy. Others attain unto a glory and may even be permitted to come into the presence of the Father and the Son; but they cannot reign as kings in glory, because they had blessings offered unto them, and they refused to accept them."
- The Prophet Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, Vol 11, p. 269
6) Not by Wilford Woodruff, but it will add to the lesson where the Manifesto is mentioned:
DandC 101:4 (removed in 1876 and replaced with section 132)
"Inasmuch as this Church of Christ has been reproached
with the crime of fornication and polygamy, we declare that we believe that one man should have one wife, and one woman but one husband, except in the case of death, when either is at liberty to marry again."
- History of the Church, vol. 2, pg. 247
7) [E]ven though Wilford Woodruff's 1890 Manifesto claimed to forbid any more plural marriages, high-ranking Mormon men continued to secretly marry plural wives until at least 1904. Even Woodruff himself plural married one Lydia Mountford in 1897, seven years after he had claimed to receive a "revelation from God" to end the practice. This demonstrates the lies and hypocrisy which Mormons engaged in during the entire history of polygamy. And now, modern church leaders are continuing to lie by covering up the facts.
Circumstantial evidence indicates that Wilford Woodruff married Madame Mountford as a plural wife in 1897. President Woodruff recorded attending her lecture on 7 February 1897, the first of ninety references to her in his diary during the next eighteen months. By April, he was recording frequent "private" or "personal" talks with her in the First Presidency’s office, and she was a dinner guest at the Woodruff home. She left Salt Lake City on 28 April to stay in San Francisco. By 8 May 1897, President Woodruff indicated his increasing interest in the charismatic forty-nine-year-old woman:
Bro Nuttall came. I had some talk on private matters with him and in some writing I wished to send to San Francisco....
I went to the office and attended to some personal writing with Bro Nuttall....
Nine days later, he recorded a further conversation with his trusted secretary about "Madam Mountford who is now in California." President Woodruff’s letters to and from her were the only references to correspondence in his diary for 1897-98. She returned to Salt Lake City from July to August, when she was a frequent guest at the Woodruff home. After her return to California, Wilford Woodruff began referring to her as "M," and asked his secretary to go with him "on the quiet" to the Pacific coast, waited until the day before his departure to inform his wife Emma of the trip, and irritated her by declining her request to accompany him because it was to be "a very quiet trip." On the train from Utah to Portland, President Woodruff "talked with Bro Nuttall confidentially in regard to some of my personal affairs," and once the two were on the coast they not only avoided the usual visits with Mormon officials and non-Mormon friends, but President Woodruff also noted that they made all their hotel and travel arrangements under "assumed names." Nuttall manifested uneasiness about the trip that seemed less and less than merely "for a change of air and exercise," and while in their Portland hotel room, he vocally prayed that he would do nothing on the trip to offend God. In response, President Woodruff "then laid my hands on Bro Nuttall’s head and blessed him for any emergency that may arise and which may be necessary now or in the future in mine or our behalf."
In view of the abundant references to Madame Mountford’s residing in San Francisco before this trip, there is a deafening silence concerning her name during the trip, particularly during their stay in that city from 18 to 20 September 1897, when they boarded a steamship for the return trip to Portland. Their train did not reach Ogden until 25 September 1897, after which they corresponded several times a week, and she visited President Woodruff twice before she traveled to Palestine from which she did not return until after his death. Four years after L. John Nuttall accompanied President Woodruff on this trip to the Pacific coast, Madame Mountford wrote him a letter from New York City, to which Nuttall responded, "I have not forgotten the Ogden and other days with our Mutual friend."
8) http://ldsliberationfront.net/polygamy-and-the-wilford-woodruff-manual/
For those who are interested, the FamilySearch site lists five marriages for Wilford Woodruff. His listed wives, as well as the years of marriage in each case, are:
Sarah Brown (1853-1898)
Emma Smith (1853-1898)
Phoebe Whittemore Carter (1837-1885)
Mary Ann Jackson (1846-divorce before 1857)
Sarah Delight Stocking (1857-1898)
Note that I have been unable to find the date for Woodruff’s divorce from Jackson. However, Woodruff’s biography by Thomas Alexander states that Jackson offered to remarry Woodruff in April 1857 – but Woodruff refused on the basis that the two had already been proven to be incompatible.
Woodruff had two other known wives, as well: Mary Carolyn Barton and Sarah Elinore Brown. He married both women in 1846 and divorced them the same year.
9) http://www.ldshistory.net/pc/postman.htm
A Presidency's secretary proposed polygamous marriage in 1903, and another Presidency's secretary performed a polygamous marriage in 1907. Of the sixteen men who served only as Apostles in other words, their service did not extend into the First Presidency, but they served only as Apostles from 1890 until April 1904, eight of these sixteen men married post-Manifesto plural wives. Three of them who did not do so, performed plural marriages. Two of them who did not do either of the above, arranged for plural marriages.
Only three of the men who served only as Apostles from 1890 to 1904 did not participate at all in encouraging, promoting or entering into new plural marriage.
One of the new Apostles who was appointed after April 1904, the time of the second Manifesto, assured post-1890 polygamists that the second Manifesto was meaningless. Another of these new Apostles appointed in the years after the second Manifesto, courted polygamously before and after his appointment in 1906. A third of the Apostles appointed after 1906, had performed 43 plural marriages after the Manifesto himself. And a fourth Apostle appointed after the second Manifesto himself entered into a polygamous marriage in 1925.
Now, looking at the men individually. Wilford Woodruff, who was senior Apostle and President from 1887 until his death in 1898.
On the day the Manifesto was accepted in October of 1890. He personally approved 7 new plural marriages, to be performed in Mexico. He also approved polygamous ceremonies for a couple of Mexican residents as early as 1891. He delegated George Q. Cannon, his first counselor, to give approval for plural marriages from 1892 to 1898. That approval was in the form of written letters. In this way, President Woodruff himself could avoid personal knowledge. He could claim he had no personal knowledge of these authorized plural marriages.
President Woodruff told a Temple meeting of the First Presidency and the Apostles in 1894 that due to the Manifesto, men "will be justified in concubinage by sacred vows," even without a polygamous ceremony in order to raise a righteous posterity." In 1894, President Woodruff gave his approval for Apostle Abraham H. Cannon to marry a new plural wife as a proxy for Apostle Cannon's deceased brother. And Apostle Cannon actually did this in 1896 while President Woodruff was still alive.
President Woodruff himself married a new Plural Wife in 1897, Lydia Mountford, who was a Jew, born in Palestine and had lectured widely throughout the United States on Palestine. He married her in September of 1897 on a steamship on the Pacific Ocean, between San Francisco and Portland; and he arranged for an Apostle to perform plural marriages on steamships a month later, and also four months later.
Concerning this marriage which occurred outside the Temple and therefore had no record inside the Temple, on November 23, 1920, this ceremony of Madam Mountford and Wilford Woodruff, which occurred in 1897, was repeated by proxy in the Salt Lake Temple.
President Woodruff's proxy was his son, and Madam Mountford's proxy was Susan Young Gates, who was a sister of another of President Woodruff's lesser known plural wives.
| Was lesson #1 of the Wilford Woodruff manual the beginning of the slow process of converting the general membership from the idea of a First Vision consisting of a visit from God and Jesus Christ to the idea of a visit by an angel only?
The idea that there are many different versions (see here) of the First Vision is foreign to many LDS. Most TBMs would seem to hold a view similar to that expressed by Gordon B. Hinckley in the October 2002 General Conference address "The Marvelous Foundation of Our Faith" where he stated:
"We declare without equivocation that God the Father and His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, appeared in person to the boy Joseph Smith.
When I was interviewed by Mike Wallace on the 60 Minutes program, he asked me if I actually believed that. I replied, "Yes, sir. That's the miracle of it."
That is the way I feel about it. Our whole strength rests on the validity of that vision. It either occurred or it did not occur. If it did not, then this work is a fraud. If it did, then it is the most important and wonderful work under the heavens.
Reflect upon it, my brethren and sisters. For centuries the heavens remained sealed. Good men and women, not a few–really great and wonderful people–tried to correct, strengthen, and improve their systems of worship and their body of doctrine. To them I pay honor and respect. How much better the world is because of their bold action. While I believe their work was inspired, it was not favored with the opening of the heavens, with the appearance of Deity.
Then in 1820 came that glorious manifestation in answer to the prayer of a boy who had read in his family Bible the words of James: "If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him" (James 1:5).
Upon that unique and wonderful experience stands the validity of this Church.
In all of recorded religious history there is nothing to compare with it. The New Testament recounts the baptism of Jesus when the voice of God was heard and the Holy Ghost descended in the form of a dove. At the Mount of Transfiguration, Peter, James, and John saw the Lord transfigured before them. They heard the voice of the Father, but they did not see Him.
Why did both the Father and the Son come to a boy, a mere lad? For one thing, they came to usher in the greatest gospel dispensation of all time, when all of previous dispensations should be gathered and brought together in one.
Deconstructor's site has a great page discussing several questions about the First Vision which, when answered, do not support the party line about the First Vision as discussed in the canonized Joseph Smith History which agrees with GBH's conference statement above.
However, lesson #1 of the Wilford Woodruff manual states the following in the section titled "After centuries of apostasy, the Lord restored the fulness of the gospel through the Prophet Joseph Smith.":
"The gospel has gone forth in our day in its true glory, power, order, and light, as it always did when God had a people among men that he acknowledged. That same organization and gospel that Christ died for, and the apostles spilled their blood to vindicate, is again established in this generation. How did it come? By the ministering of an holy angel from God, out of heaven, who [conversed] with man, and revealed unto him the darkness that enveloped the world, and unfolded unto him the gross darkness that surrounded the nations, those scenes that should take place in this generation, and would follow each other in quick succession even unto the coming of the Messiah [see Joseph Smith–History 1:30–49]. The angel taught Joseph Smith those principles which are necessary for the salvation of the world; and the Lord gave him commandments, and sealed upon him the priesthood, and gave him power to administer the ordinances of the house of the Lord. He told him the gospel was not among men, and that there was not a true organization of his kingdom in the world, that the people had turned away from his true order, changed the ordinances and broken the everlasting covenant, and inherited lies and things wherein there was no profit. He told him the time had come to lay the foundation for the establishment of the Kingdom of God among men for the last time preparatory to the winding up scene.
The reference to this quote in the manual is the Deseret News, March 21, 1855. It is no wonder that the reference is not the Journal of Discourses, Vol. 2, pp. 196-197 because that may lead the average TBM who desires to search the original quote sources (how often is GBH quoted from a newspaper and not the Ensign when the quote is found in both?!?) and stumble upon the
following:
Information from the Tanner's website about the evolution of the First Vision where the following entry is found:
1855
LDS President Brigham Young taught on Feb. 18, 1855: "...so it was in the advent of this new dispensation....The messenger did not come to an eminent divine...The Lord did not come with the armies of heaven,...But He did send His angel to this same obscure person, Joseph Smith jun., who afterwards became a Prophet, Seer, and Revelator, and informed him that he should not join any of the religious sects of the day,..." (Journal of Discourses, Vol. 2, p. 171)
A few days later Apostle Wilford Woodruff preached: "That same organization and Gospel that Christ died for, and the Apostles spilled their blood to vindicate, is again established in this generation. How did it come? By the ministering of an holy angel from God,... The angel taught Joseph Smith those principles which are necessary for the salvation of the world;... He told him the Gospel was not among men, and that there was not a true organization of His kingdom in the world,... This man to whom the angel appeared obeyed the Gospel;..." (Journal of Discourses, Vol. 2, pp. 196-197)
I'm amazed that this quote was even in the manual to begin with. Admittedly it was used to give credence to the laughable idea that the Gospel as restored by Joseph Smith is unchangeable and unchanging, but to gives as the source for the quote a newspaper report of a conference talk, rather than the conference talk itself in the JoD is akin to putting out a manual in 2020 on The Teachings of Gordon B. Hinckley and listing the source of his October 2002 talk above as the Deseret News and not the Ensign.
Unthinkable?
Or merely evidence that the Correlation Committee is very careful about what goes into the manuals?
BTW - LDS Inc. encourages comments on it's manuals:
Your comments and suggestions about this book would be appreciated. Please submit them to Curriculum Planning, 50 East North Temple Street, Room 2420, Salt Lake City, UT 84150-3220 USA. E-mail: cur-development@ldschurch.org
Please list your name, address, ward, and stake. Be sure to give the title of the book. Then offer your comments and suggestions about the book’s strengths and areas of potential improvement.
LOL!
| Once again, the official Church-published lesson manual completely disrespects and ignores the existence of the plural wives of one of Mormonism's prominent polygamist prophets?
In scanning through the relatively new official church lesson manual based on Wilford Woodruff, I can't find any indication that Wilford Woodruff was one of polygamy's great promoters and practitioners. On pages 77 and 161, one can find reference only to his wife Phoebe, giving the subtle implication that Wilford was perhaps a monogamist.
Did all of his other wives somehow cease to be important or cease to count as wives? Were there no tender moments spent with any of the other wives? Were there no spiritual experiences with any of his other wives and families from which spiritual lessons could be gleaned and reported in the lesson manual? Why does the "Historical Summary" of Wilford's life (pages x-xiv) fail to record any of his marriages? Were these marriages so unimportant that they deserve NO MENTION WHATSOEVER?
The Historical Summary includes entries such as "begins work as a miller", "returns to his family and other Saints in Nauvoo", "serves as Assistant Church Historian", and "attends the celebration of his 90th birthday". Apparently each of these events was vastly more important than Wilford's marriage to ANY OF HIS WIVES.
In fact about the only reference to polygamy in connection with Wilford (who had several plural wives and dozens of offspring) seems to be the reference to the Manifesto that cancelled the practice.
Almost hilariously, the lesson manual shows, on page 160, Wilford and three of Wilford's male progeny (son, grandson and great-grandson) through a son by his first, and apparently "only" wife Phoebe, with the caption "Four Generations in President Woodruff's family"--again with no indication that he had numerous other sons, daughters, grandaughters and grandsons by numerous wives. This is immediately followed by the description, which starts on page 161, of Wilford's marriage to his first wife Phoebe, again with no reference to ANY OF HIS OTHER WIVES OR EVEN THE FACT THAT HE HAD OTHER WIVES!
So what the hell happened to all of Wilford's other wives??? Would they be happy to know that after sacrificing everything to live the principle and commandment of polygamy, their lives and status are such a great embarrassment to the Church that they deserve no mention whatsoever--not even a footnote???
The disgusting lying-by-omission game and campaign of the Church obviously continues to go forward full throttle. Recent converts and young members who study from the recent series of church lesson manuals could be easily forgiven if they assumed that hyper-polygamists such as Brigham Young and Wilford Woodruff had lived as monogamists.
Who are the people who write these manuals and doesn't it disturb them to take part in such a cynical display of historical cover-up?
| As an EQ instructor, I was assigned this week to teach lesson 16 which talks about raising kids in the Gospel and being good parents. I had a real anxiety attack about doing it. I basically read the stuff I agreed with and gave little attention to the stuff that was BS.
The lesson starts off with a story of Phoebe, Wilford's wife and how she almost died when they were a married couple. It talks about NDE. So I talked about NDE experiences for a couple of minutes. Then it talks about how she devoted her life to being a good wife for her husband, even though.."his church duties would take him away for extended periods of time."
I was so tempted to say something like..
"and he also had to make sure to keep all his other wives happy."
I like how the Church makes it sound like these early 'prophets' did not practice polygamy at all. If I were a new convert not knowing any better, I would think that this Phoebe was Wilford's ONLY wife during his lifetime, and that he did have to slip away on trips to attend to his 'manly' duties with his OTHER wives.
There is a part where Woodruff talks for a few minutes about how the father is the head of the home and that the woman should follow HIS counsel and be subordinant to him. So the Church still is teaching NON-equal rights. I didn't mention this part.
Thankfully we got onto a discussion of how hard it was to raise good kids today and I didn't have to give anymore untrue history or doctrine of Woodruff for the rest of the meeting.
Next time it's my turn to teach I think I'm going to fake an illness and stay home.
| Sept 16, 1877 - Wilford Woodruff preaches:
"But when we came to this country, what did we find here? A barren desert as barren as the Desert of Sahara; and the only signs of life were a few black crickets, some cayote wolves, and a few poor wandering Indians."
But thirty years earlier the same Wilford Woodruff wrote in his journal of his impressions of the Salt Lake Valley when he entered it on July 24, 1847:
"We gazed with wonder and admiration upon the vast rich fertile valley which lay for about 25 miles in length and 16 miles in width Clothed with the Heaviest garb of green vegitation in the midst of which lay a large lake of Salt water . . . After gazing awhile upon the seenery we travled across the table land into the valley 4 miles to the encampment of our Brethren who had arived 2 days before. [-] they had pitched there encampment upon the bank of two small streams of pure water and had commenced plowing. Had broke about 5 acres of ground and commenced planting Potatoes."
| Wilfords Personal Journal Entry 24 July 1847:
"We gazed with wonder and admiration upon the vast rich fertile valley which lay for about 25 miles in length and 16 miles in width. Clothed with the Heaviest garb of green vegitation in the midst of which lay a large body of salt water...After gazing awhile upon the seenery we travelled across the table land into the valley 4 mile to the encampment of our Brethren who had arrived 2 days before [-] they had pitched there encampment upon the bank of two small streams of pure water and had commenced plowing. Had broke about 5 acres of ground and commenced planting Potatoes"
BUT...
Wilford Woodruff in 1880:
"When we came here thirty-three years ago we found this place a barren desert. There was no mark of the white man here. It was a desert indeed, hardly a green thing to meet the eye."
Discourse by Elder Wilford Woodruff - Delivered in the Salt Lake Asembly Hall, at the semiannual conference of the Salt Lake Stake of Zion, Saturday afternoon, July 3rd, 1880.
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